April 21st, 2008
ABU DHABI — The Filipina housemaid E.F., who jumped from the second floor in an attempt to escape from her employer told investigators that she was trying to run away because she was over-worked and wanted to seek a better job.
The Abu Dhabi Police have referred the case to the Public Prosecution for appropriate action […]
April 21st, 2008
ABU DHABI — A 40-year-old Filipina housemaid suffered serious injuries and was admitted to a hospital after she fell from the second floor of a building in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
A police official who did not want to be named told Khaleej Times the maid was apparently trying to escape from the apartment of […]
April 16th, 2008
From the BBC -
Darmianti binti Jaba Saleh only realised where she was when she pulled out the pile of money she had been given.
Written across the top of the notes were the words “Bank of Iraq”.
Darmianti was having her medical check-up prior to being placed as a domestic worker in the Kurdish north of Iraq.
The […]
April 1st, 2008
According to the AP -
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Oil-rich Gulf nations, already facing labor protests, are getting new pressure from India, which wants them to pay minimum wages for unskilled workers.
The move by India — which has 5 million workers in the Gulf, making it the largest source of migrants — is the […]
March 28th, 2008
According to an article in the LA Times concerning modern slavery:
One hot june day in 2006, I saw what slavery really meant. In a rundown mansion in a slum of Bucharest, Romania, a pimp offered to sell me a young woman he described as “a blond.” She had bleached hair, hastily applied makeup, and she […]
March 21st, 2008
From the Wall Street Journal (and via The Emirates Economist blog) -
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — Protests and violent skirmishes over rising prices are hitting parts of the Middle East, a region already beset by strife but otherwise enjoying an unprecedented, oil-fueled economic boom.
On Tuesday, hundreds of workers demanding higher wages to counter soaring food […]
February 12th, 2008
From the AFP:
MANAMA (AFP) — Around 1,300 migrant workers helping to build a luxury coastal development in Bahrain have gone on strike to demand higher wages, a company official said on Sunday.
The workers are employed by the contracting firm GP Zachariades to work on the Durrat al-Bahrain development in the south of the wealthy Gulf […]
February 8th, 2008
For the past 28 years, Mrs Bala, now in her 70s, has been helping Bahrain’s migrant labourers, most of whom come from the Indian subcontinent, in any way she can.
A practising lawyer, she has helped solve scores of labour disputes, talked dozens out of suicide, clothed and fed hundreds of workers too poor to buy […]
January 29th, 2008
Laudable statement from The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights:
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights strongly condemns recent comments made by the Labour Minister (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/gulfimmigrationlabour), in which he warns that Gulf countries face danger of an “Asian tsunami” because of the high numbers of migrant workers upon which Gulf countries are reliant.
Minister Majid al-Alawi allegedly said […]
January 25th, 2008
From Lankan Business online:
DUBAI, Jan 24, 2008 (AFP) - A Sri Lankan maid, in transit on her way home from Kuwait to see her children for the first time in three years, hanged herself in a toilet at Dubai airport, an Emirati daily said on Thursday.
The report came just two days after the oil-rich Gulf […]